Studies of women's drinking and drinking problems have been limited mainly to atheoretical analyses of small clinical samples, using bivariate data analysis. The research proposed here would overcome these limitations by a national survey of antecedents, patterns, and consequences of women's drinking, allowing multivariate analyses based on a complex theoretical model. The model contains three major sets of antecedents of women's drinking: (1) personality characteristics (drinking related motives, beliefs, and self-restraints); (2) perceived social environment (value supports, drinking norms, drinking opportunities and models); and (3) life experiences (deviant behavior, affective disorders, sexual functioning, OB-GYN disorders, stressful life events). The antecedents affect amounts and frequencies of women's drinking, contexts of drinking, and personal and social consequences of drinking. Evaluating the model and sex differences in drinking will involve interviewing national samples of 500 women who drink moderately or heavily, 500 women who drink lightly or abstain, and 500 men. A pretested questionnaire will use previously validated measures plus new queries about aspects of women's drinking not covered by previous surveys. Path analysis of the data will be supplemented by analyses of demographic subgroups and intergroup comparisons (e.g., between sexes). Identifying the complex influences on women's drinking and drinking problems will help prevention and treatment programs become better targeted to the special needs of women with drinking problems.